Putting the Gears Back In Your Career

It is perfectly natural to find in life a great number of people who excel when fighting for the cause of others, but clamp up like an oyster when it comes to fighting for their own causes. It may be time to change that, for denying the present reality can devastate your future.

Law firm structures usually show that alongside a greater body of lawyers with specialized skills, there remains a core of legal staff with greater coordinating abilities. The legal staff at the core are seen as more trustable and loyal to the firm and despite lower level of skills, they have a higher chance of being retained even at times of change. Core legal staff are perceived as dependable lesser skilled people, while highly paid and higher skilled legal staff are viewed as mercenaries hired to deal with specific needs.


The legal staff at the core of law firms often find their careers stagnating. Once caught in career stagnation, the usual reaction of the mind is to create a self-protective delusion of being satisfied with things as they are. However, while such attempts to delude one’s own self purchase a peace of sorts, it doesn’t diminish your frustration at the lack of career prospects.

In human resources, this situation is called a career plateau. By definition it means that you have reached a point in your career where further chances of moving up in the official hierarchy is very low or almost absent. The problems is that legal staff at the core of law firms, despite lower skills in specialized fields, enjoy positions because of the trust placed on them by their firms. The legal employee at the core of a law firm also recognizes that a similar position would be hard to attain in another organization. Staying too long in such situations quickly lead to perceptions of having failed in career and having failed to realize one’s potential. It is disheartening but common to find legal staff stuck on a career plateau refusing to budge and allowing themselves to become frustrated rather than trying to do something about the situation.

If you are a legal staff at any level in a law firm and find yourself stagnating without opportunities or prospects of moving up in your career, you must move now to break the barriers and take charge of the situation. Some time tested strategies to break free from the stranglehold of career stagnation include:
 

• Chalking out a personal strategy and deciding where you would like to see yourself
• Taking charge of the direction and growth of your personal professional career rather than hoping on your employer to find solutions for you
• Start broadening your skill set and increase your value. For a time, seek to enhance rather than advance.
• Meet people who are there where you want to be. Ask for suggestions on how to develop yourself to join their league.
• Begin setting a series of short-term goals that charts the path to your ultimate goal

At the same time, in your job and at your law firm,
 

• Start stressing your performance at your job and enhance interpersonal relations and performance
• Try to be completely in tune with your firm’s objectives and your duties and responsibilities
• Avoid problems or raising them. Try always to be a solution provider.
• Highlight the efforts of others.
• Consciously culture a positive attitude and do not look for appreciation. What you do makes a difference. In the end, it matters whether you are satisfied with what you have done or not.

Believe it; following these simple steps will immediately change the world around you. Your world is what you perceive, and soon you will be free of stagnation or its feelings, and start moving forward.